Десмонд Бэгли - The Golden Keel

Jean was fascinated by the story and after that we made a game of it, figuring ways and means of removing four tons of gold from Italy as unobtrusively as possible. Just as an academic exercise, of course. Jean had a fertile imagination and some of her ideas were very good.

In 1959 we got clear of our indebtedness to the bank by dint of strict economy. The yard was ours now with no strings attached and we celebrated by laying the keel of a 15-tonner I had designed for Jean and myself. My old faithful King Penguin , one of the first of her class, was all right for coastal pottering, but we had the idea that one day we would do some ocean voyaging, and we wanted a bigger boat.

A 15-tonner is just the right size for two people to handle and big enough to live in indefinitely. This boat was to be forty feet overall, thirty feet on the waterline with eleven feet beam. She would be moderately canvased for ocean voyaging and would have a big auxiliary diesel engine. We were going to call her Sanford in memory of old Tom.

When she was built we would take a year’s leave, sail north to spend some time in the Mediterranean, and come back by the east coast, thus making a complete circumnavigation of Africa. Jean had a mischievous glint in her eye. ‘Perhaps we’ll bring that gold back with us,’ she said.

But two months later the blow fell.

I had designed a boat for Bill Meadows and had sent him the drawings for approval. By mishap the accommodation plans had been left out of the packet, so Jean volunteered to take them to Fish Hoek where Bill lives.

It’s a nice drive to Fish Hoek along the Chapman’s Peak road with views of sea and mountain, far better than anything I have since seen on the Riviera. Jean delivered the drawings and on the way back in the twilight a drunken oaf in a high-powered American car forced her off the road and she fell three hundred feet into the sea.

The bottom dropped out of my life.

It meant nothing to me that the driver of the other car got five years for manslaughter — that wouldn’t bring Jean back. I let things slide at the yard and if it hadn’t been for Harry Marshall the business would have gone to pot.

It was then that I tallied up my life and made a sort of mental balance sheet. I was thirty-six years old; I had a good business which I had liked but which now I didn’t seem to like so much; I had my health and strength — boat-building and sailing tend to keep one physically fit — and I had no debts. I even had money in the bank with more rolling in all the time.

On the other side of the balance sheet was the dreadful absence of Jean, which more than counter-balanced all the advantages.

I felt I couldn’t stay at the yard or even in Cape Town, where memories of Jean would haunt me at every corner. I wanted to get away. I was waiting for something to happen.

I was ripe for mischief.

A couple of weeks later I was in a bar on Adderley Street having a drink or three. It wasn’t that I’d taken to drink, but I was certainly drinking more than I had been accustomed to. I had just started on my third brandy when I felt a touch at my elbow and a voice said, ‘Hallo, I haven’t seen you for a long time.’

I turned and found Walker standing next to me.

The years hadn’t dealt kindly with Walker. He was thinner, his dark, good looks had gone to be replaced by a sharpness of feature, and his hairline had receded. His clothes were unpressed and frayed at the edges, and there was an air of seediness about him which was depressing.

‘Hallo,’ I said. ‘Where did you spring from?’ He was looking at my full glass of brandy, so I said, ‘Have a drink.’

‘Thanks,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll have a double.’

That gave me a pretty firm clue as to what had happened to Walker, but I didn’t mind being battened upon for a couple of drinks, so I paid for the double brandy.

He raised the glass to his lips with a hand that trembled slightly, took a long lingering gulp, then put the glass down, having knocked back three-quarters of the contents. ‘You’re looking prosperous,’ he said.

‘I’m not doing too badly.’

He said, ‘I was sorry to hear of what happened to your wife.’ He hurried on as he saw my look of inquiry. ‘I read about it in the paper. I thought it must have been your wife — the name was the same and all that.’

I thought he had spent some time hunting me up. Old friends and acquaintances are precious to an alcoholic; they can be touched for the odd drink and the odd fiver.

‘That’s finished and best forgotten,’ I said shortly. Unwittingly, perhaps, he had touched me on the raw — he had brought Jean back. ‘What are you doing now?’

He shrugged. ‘This and that.’

‘You haven’t picked up any gold lately?’ I said cruelly. I wanted to pay him back for putting Jean in my mind.

‘Do I look as though I have?’ he asked bitterly. Unexpectedly, he said, ‘I saw Coertze last week.’

‘Here — in Cape Town?’

‘Yes. He’d just come back from Italy. He’s back in Jo’burg now, I expect.’

I smiled. ‘Did he have any gold with him?’

Walker shook his head. ‘He said that nothing’s changed.’ He suddenly gripped me by the arm. ‘The gold’s still there — nobody’s found it. It’s still there — four tons of gold in that tunnel — and all the jewels.’ He had a frantic urgency about him.

‘Well, why doesn’t he do something about it?’ I said. ‘Why doesn’t he go and get it out? Why don’t you both go?’

‘He doesn’t like me,’ said Walker sulkily. ‘He’ll hardly speak to me.’ He took one of my cigarettes from the packet on the counter, and I lit it for him, amusedly. ‘It isn’t easy to get it out of the country,’ he said. ‘Even Sergeant High-and-Mighty Coertze hasn’t found a way.’

He grinned tightly. ‘Imagine that,’ he said, almost gaily. ‘Even the brainy Coertze can’t do it. He put the gold in a hole in the ground and he’s too scared to get it out.’ He began to laugh hysterically.

I took his arm. ‘Take it easy.’

His laughter choked off suddenly. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Buy me another drink; I left my wallet at home.’

I crooked my finger at the bartender and Walker ordered another double. I was beginning to understand the reason for his degradation. For fourteen years the knowledge that a fortune in gold was lying in Italy waiting to be picked up had been eating at him like a cancer. Even when I knew him ten years earlier I was aware of the fatal weakness in him, and now one could see that the bitterness of defeat had been too much. I wondered how Coertze was standing up to the strain. At least he seemed to be doing something about it, even if only keeping an eye on the situation.

I said carefully, ‘If Coertze was willing to take you, would you be prepared to go to Italy to get the stuff out?’

He was suddenly very still. ‘What d’you mean?’ he demanded. ‘Have you been talking to Coertze?’

‘I’ve never laid eyes on the man.’

Walker’s glance shifted nervously about the bar, then he straightened. ‘Well, if he... wanted me; if he... needed me — I’d be prepared to go along.’ He said this with bravado but the malice showed through when he said, ‘He needed me once, you know; he needed me when we buried the stuff.’

‘You wouldn’t be afraid of him?’

‘What do you mean — afraid of him? Why should I be afraid of him? I’m afraid of nobody.’

‘You were pretty certain he’d committed at least four murders.’

He seemed put out. ‘Oh that! That was a long time ago. And I never said he’d murdered anybody. I never said it.’

‘No, you never actually said it.’